Free Polls Apart by Clare Stephen-Johnston

by her boyishly spiky black hair. She thought she would hate the pushy hack who’d steamrollered her into an interview, but looking at the little pixie-like thing in front of her, Anna couldn’t help but feel something close to affection. She just looked so sweet.
    “You’d better let me in quick,” Marie said, waving Anna back. “I saw a couple of photographers at the top of the road looking for the house and they’re not with me.”
    “My PR agent said they’d be on to me soon enough,” Anna replied, closing the door quickly. “Come through to the kitchen.”
    Marie trotted along the wooden hallway behind Anna until they reached the big open-plan kitchen.
    “Did you say this is your sister’s home?” Marie asked.
    “Yes,” Anna nodded.
    “What a lovely family kitchen,” the reporter said, her eyes misting with nostalgia as she looked around. Anna watched Marie as she studied the scruffy floors and furnishings and knew she had already identified Libby’s home as one belonging to a loving and secure family who cared little about belongings and superficial gloss.
    “I’m really enjoying spending time here,” Anna said, alarming herself slightly at how quickly she was opening up. “My sister, Libby, is out shopping just now but she’ll be back later.”
    “Great. It would be nice to meet her,” Marie said as she rifled through her bag looking for her voice recorder. “I’ve got a photographer coming later, if that’s still okay?”
    “Yes, that’s fine.”
    Marie had offered Anna the opportunity to come in to the Echo ’s photographic studio for the shoot, but Anna had asked that they keep it low-key and just take a couple of shots in the garden. She hated that she had to attach her photo to this interview – just which facial expression was she supposed to use in this situation? Meek smile? Bereft, heartbroken and wounded pout? But she knew the rules of the game by now and there was no way around it.
    Once Anna had fetched Marie a coffee, and the reporter had set up her voice recorder, the two women were ready to begin the interview. Anna had rehearsed with Libby what she wanted to get across. Her sister had told her not to sound too bitter and not to get personal in attacking others as that might alienate people who had previously taken her side. She had agreed she would talk only fleetingly about her childhood and not mention the most difficult time – the shared secret that had been with the two of them since their teens. They both felt the burden of it every day, but while Libby had pretty much made peace with her past, for Anna it had become a black cloud that followed her wherever she went.
    Sitting at the kitchen table that sunny spring morning, Anna saw that cloud for what it was: a hazardous mix of hurt and anger and shame that had been growing inside since her youth and which was just waiting to explode.
    Marie took a deep breath before launching into her first question. Starting an interview as big as this one felt like tiptoeing towards the edge of a diving board and forcing yourself to step off. She had spent several hours preparing for this, the exclusive that could make or break her. And she knew all too well that if she started on the wrong foot, she could spend the rest of the interview paying for it. So Marie called on the outer confidence she used so convincingly to mask the inner nervous wreck that she actually felt.
    “Do you feel your marriage to Richard is a happy one?” she asked, almost wanting to cross her fingers as the final word left her mouth. Earlier that day she had tried to rephrase her opening question several times, but in the end decided just to ask it outright. Marie prayed Anna would not tense up or dismiss her. They only had one hour together so every question had to count.
    Marie relaxed as soon as she saw the reflective smile spread across Anna’s face.
    “I certainly thought we were happy,” she began. “The Richard I married six years ago was a